Notes from a car trip

WINEDALE — Just got back to the country place in Washington County after a 10-day car trip. Haven’t even unpacked yet and I’m flipping though my notebook, to see if I wrote down anything I’d like to tell you about:

Here’s something. In Santa Fe (New Mexico, that is) I was talking to a fellow in the lobby of the Eldorado Hotel. This was on a fine day of weather. Low for the previous night had been in the 40s and snow was on the mountaintops north of town.

The fellow said yeah, the weather was great but he didn’t like Santa Fe any longer because it had changed. Said he came there with his bride 30 years ago and loved the city, but it’s different now. It’s all grown up and spread out, and two or three of the places they enjoyed aren’t there now and even the food in restaurants is different.

I wonder how many dozen times I’ve heard that, not just about Santa Fe but other cities as well. Travelers find places in the world that they love, and they want them to stay the same always, and resent that they change.

I’ve caught myself doing that. Example, I used to love crossing the Rio Grande down in the Lower Valley and eating in the restaurants in Reynosa or Matamoros or Piedras Negras. But those border towns have grown so much that I can’t get around in them now. Last time I went across to Reynosa I couldn’t even find Rudy Villareal’s restaurant where I used to eat white-winged dove cooked in wine sauce. (And have a tequila sour that cost 40 cents.) So I just don’t cross the river anymore.

Moving along, here’s a note from up in the Panhandle:

Any time we get close to Amarillo we go see my partner’s cousin, Soeurette Cowan, and her husband, Bob. They live in town but have what I guess you’d call a summer home on the lip of Palo Duro Canyon, near the city of Canyon south of Amarillo. I’ve finally learned how to spell Soeurette’s name. It means Little Sister in French.

Few weeks ago, driving on the road that leads to their canyon place, she stopped to watch a mountain lion standing out in the brush, pretty close to her car. It stood there quite a while, looking back at her. Then it began walking slowly, parallel to the road, and Soeurette rolled along with it until it disappeared in the timber.

Since then several other people have seen this lion, and have taken some pretty fair pictures of it. Apparently it’s a mama lion because two cubs have been seen in this same neighborhood.

Palo Duro Canyon is a sweet place for a mountain lion (cougar, puma, panther, same animal). The canyon has lots of wildlife to attract lions. Horses, too. Several years ago the Cowans lost a horse to a lion.

I’ve been trying for 25 years to see a cougar running free in this state. I know they’re here, and I’m convinced they never left. Last week when we were at Palo Duro, Bob Cowan gave me a tour of the area where the lion is raising cubs. Late, after sundown.

Once I saw something moving inside a brushy area and it was the right color. But it was a horse when it came out of the brush.

We have all manner of connections in Amarillo. When we get there I always check on the state of David Horsley’s health. Lot of people in our city will remember David when he was a hospital chaplain in Houston.

I forget why he and his wife, Michele, moved to Amarillo but I remember thinking it was too far away. Years ago David agreed to preach my funeral. He’ll now have a long way to travel for the preaching and according to our agreement I have to pay for his expenses.

Reason I’m interested in his health, I don’t want him dying before I do. But he’s way younger than I am, and has none of my bad habits as far as I know.

Then here’s a note I took in the city of Mansfield, which I never heard of until my sister moved there not long ago. Mansfield is south of and between Fort Worth and Dallas.

I once wrote in a book that this sister played the first piano she ever saw, that she stood flat-footed, reached up to the keyboard and played Jesus Loves Me. Several people challenged that statement but I remember seeing her do that so it must be true.

On the 15th of this month she had her 91st birthday. When we stopped to see her in Mansfield I asked if she could still play, and if so I would love to hear her one more time. She said sure she could still play, but the piano was in the back room and that was too far to walk.